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The Lord’s Prayer: Our Holy Father

Posted on March 6, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 11:1-10

This year as we journey through Lent, we are being led by prayer.

Well, one prayer in particular.

The prayer that Jesus taught us.

We teach it to our children.

We recite it each week in worship.

It is often a prayer that I will recite with families at the bedside of a dying loved one.

We know it by heart…

But has it sunk into our hearts?

I once heard a story about a church and every Sunday when the said the Lord’s Prayer, they turned around and faced the back of the sanctuary.

When a new pastor arrived, she was curious about this practice, but no one could remember why they did it that way.

That is until the church did some restoration work in the sanctuary.

As they stripped back layers of paint on the old walls, they discovered that at one time, the words of the Lord’s Prayer had been painted along that back wall.

In a time without printed bulletins, the church members had turned around to read the prayer from the wall.

Just as that congregation forgot why they said the Lord’s Prayer facing the back wall, sometimes we have forgotten the meaning behind the words that we speak.

We take the words for granted or rush through them without thinking.

Yet, contained within these beautiful verses is everything we need to know about our faith.

It reminds us of whose we are.

It tells us that we are not alone, but a community.

This prayer invites us to place our lives in God’s hands.

It asks for forgiveness and the strength to forgive others.

It calls us to acts of justice and compassion.

It is a prayer that can truly transform our lives… if we let it.

So, throughout this season of Lent, we are going to dive deep into this prayer and learn once again what it has to teach us.

Richard Foster once wrote:

“Real prayer comes not from gritting our teeth but from falling in love.” (Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, p.3)

And that is because prayer is a relationship.

The Lord’s Prayer is recorded in the gospels of both Matthew and Luke.

In Matthew, it is included along with other teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.

But in Luke’s gospel, the disciples are seeking guidance.

As they seek to grow in their faithfulness to God, they ask Jesus how they should pray… and he teaches them.

But then Jesus expands upon this idea of prayer being a relationship.

When we pray, we are asking and seeking and requesting things from the one who created us.

Now, this idea that God as our parent is not new.

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the prophets tell us that God thinks of Israel as a child… often a wayward child… but that God’s love is everlasting and unchanging, in spite of what the people might do.

Yet this prayer is not simply a metaphor.

God is not distant.

Rather at Christ’s own invitation, we join in calling God “Our Father.”

We are invited to approach God in the same way we might our own parent… knowing and trusting that we are loved and cared for and believing that God will respond out of that love.

There is a level of intimacy here, of deep relationship, of ordinary acts of care, that truly is like falling in love.

And at the same time, we are invited into a sort of paradox, for the name and presence of God is to be revered as extraordinary.

God is holy… and wholly other.

I am reminded of Exodus chapter 3, when Moses approaches the burning bush and hears a voice thunder around him… “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

Moses hides his face, afraid to look upon the divine presence.

In the midst of this exchange, God claims the people of Israel as his own.

God has heard their cries and can stand by no longer.

Like a parent who will rush to the rescue of a child who has fallen, God is acting to bring about deliverance for their suffering.

And yet, when Moses asks the name of this God…

When Moses asks, whom shall I say has sent me?

God replies – I am who I am.

A God who is distant, powerful, holy, undefineable…

A God who is close and intimate, full of love and compassion…

Our God is both of these things and more… all at the same time.

And thank God for that!

While it isn’t easy to wrap our heads around this paradox, the truth is that we need a God who is more than just an earthly parent.

The troubles and concerns of this world are far greater than any human could tackle.

The loss of life from tornados…

Deliverance from oppression…

Peacemaking in the midst of conflict – not just in Ukraine, but in Palestine, and Honduras, and Nigeria and in our country and in our families…

Healing and restoration from illness, disease, disaster, and death…

These are not simple requests and are far greater than asking for a loaf of bread.

We can only approach God in prayer with confidence because God is bigger than the problems we face.

But at the same time, a holy and powerful being that holds the life of the world in its hands can itself be a terrifying concept.

I am reminded of the eighteenth century Jonathan Edwards sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

Remember…Moses initially hid his face from God’s presence!

But Moses also came to understand God’s love.

During his time on the mountaintop in the presence of God, receiving instruction for the people, Exodus 34 tells us that the Lord proclaims again his name.

But then the Lord continues… The Lord, the Lord, is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

Coming to understand God as the one who is intimately concerned for my life, my welfare, my needs, allows me to let go of fear and rest in God’s presence.

We can trust that God truly does care about my needs and we are free to approach God in love expressing the yearning of our heart.

God is holy.

God is love and acts with parental love.

I am God’s child.

But there is one final piece of this first phrase that we cannot ignore.

While we do not capture it quite so clearly in Luke’s version of the prayer, it is part of the language we carry forward from Matthew’s gospel.

Jesus does not say “My Father.”

He does not ask us to think of ourselves as individual children.

We say “Our Father.”

Not once in this prayer do we say “I” or “me.”

Victor Hoagland recently shared a story about his close relationship with his eight-year-old granddaughter. She is the youngest of the bunch and they have had a chance to spend a lot of time together.

One evening, he and his wife invited all five of their grandchildren to come over for dinner and Hoagland noticed as they gathered that this little one seemed upset.

When he asked her what was wrong, she answered: “I thought I was the only one coming.”

Hoagland reassured his granddaughter of his great love for her… but also how much love he has for all of his grandchildren and that it was such a great thing they could all be together.

We often find ourselves in the shoes of that little girl.

We claim our relationship with this holy parent for ourselves, but we are not as quick to think about all of God’s other children.

And the truth is that prayer is not just about our relationship with God, but our relationship with one another.

We are called to consider that others are God’s children, too.

People we love, but also people that we can’t stand.

People we disagree with and people who are actively working to harm us.

People we have never met and those whose values and perspectives are vastly different than ours.

I have to admit that this concept hits me in a very different way this week.

Last night, my grandmother, my Babi, died from damage caused to her lungs by Covid.

I am navigating how to be present and offer love and care for family.

But it is hard and messy and complicated.

My family has been separated and split from one another by conflict that has gone unhealed for more than a decade.

And yet, we are all still family. We belong to one another.

But even more than that, we are all claimed by God as children.

Every time we say the words of this prayer, we are speaking into being the reality that we are connected to one another.

Our loved ones… our friends… yes… but even those who have caused us pain… even those we might sometimes think of as enemies… even those we struggle to understand or forgive.

We are all children of God.

And just as my own heart is full of concerns and fears that I bring before this Holy Parent, so too are others.

As the words of “This is my song” remind us:

“this is my song, O God of all the nations,

A song of peace for lands afar and mind.

This is my home, the country where my heart is;

Here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;

But other hearts in other lands are beating

With hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.”

Our. Holy. Parent.

This opening phrase of the prayer that Jesus taught us invites us to claim three truths:

God cares intimately about what happens in our lives and responds in love.

God is holy and powerful and has the capacity to act and transform.

And we are called not just to think of ourselves, but to recognize that we are connected in one family.

Over these forty days of Lent, we will continue to explore this prayer and learn more about what it teaches us.

But we are also invited not just to intellectually process these words, but to allow them to transform us.

And to that end, for this holy season, I want to invite you to claim a practice with me.

I want to invite you to pray this prayer with me not once per day, not twice, but three times every day.

I want to invite you to make it a part of your living and breathing as you go through your life.

I want to invite you to allow it to fall into your heart and settle in your being.

May it be so.

Time to Go

Posted on November 28, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Luke 21:25-36, Jeremiah 33:14-16

Have you ever been at a gathering… maybe with family or with friends… and all of a sudden you didn’t really want to be there anymore?

Maybe you were tired.

Or maybe the conversation became stale.

Maybe they ran out of food or someone said something that offended you.

Or maybe you just knew that you had an early morning planned for the next day and it was time to go.

You wanted to be back home, in comfy clothes, rather than there.

Maybe you had one of those moments in these past few days!

I just hope you aren’t having one right now 😊

Friends, I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

When my husband and I are at a party, or an event, or even just hanging out with family and the time has come to go home… when it’s time to get outta there… we have a secret phrase.

“Tut-tut… looks like rain!”

When either one of us utters those words, we know it is time to start packing up our stuff.

And when I shared that with church members, I quickly learned how many other couples and families have their own secret signs… a look, a poke, a phrase.

The point is… we all know how to look and listen for the signs that it is time to go home.

This Advent at Immanuel is all about going home…

Getting back to that place that is safe and welcoming and comfortable…

Creating that kind of space in our own lives for other people…

And yet, as we dive into this Advent season, the scriptures of this particular lectionary year are far from comforting.

We get a lot of harsh words from the prophets and startling visions of the end times.

Words of judgement and challenge are going to be leaping off the pages at us.

But there are also words of comfort and promise and grace and love.

You see, Advent is a time of preparation.

It is a time of getting ready.

And it is not just about getting ready for the birth of one very special child.

It is about getting ready for how the world is about to turn!

It is about getting ready for the kin-dom that this child will usher in!

It is about how everything changes and shifts and reorients itself because Jesus has been born and because Jesus is about to come again!

And we are longing for that world and that kin-dom.

We are homesick for God’s reign.

We are waiting and yearning for a reality in which there is no more hunger, no more hatred, no more hurt.

And the truth is, we aren’t quite there yet.

But as people who follow Christ… we hold on in hope to the promise that God’s kin-dom is our true home.

Our gospel reading from Luke this morning is what is known as the “little apocalypse.”

If we glance at these words without diving into the context, they sound awfully scary.

Dismay among nations.

Surging waves.

Planets that are shaken.

Fear and foreboding.

But let’s think about these signs in context of that party or gathering that I described just a few minutes ago.

You find yourself a guest at a gathering of the world, but the tables are empty.

The conversation is heated.

The fire is going out.

And you know in your gut that this isn’t your home and it’s time to go.

You want to get out of there.

You want to get home.

But you can’t.

You don’t know how.

In that moment, Luke’s gospel tells us, when everything seems to be falling apart and lost and ruined and the party has been crashed…

That is when Christ will come…

That is when God’s kin-dom will appear…

That is when we will know that we are just about home.

So, in those moments when you are the most homesick…

the most filled with longing…

That is when we need to hang on to hope, because everything that was promised is about to burst forth in life.

We just need to pay attention.

The prophet Jeremiah knew something about being homesick.

He understood what it was like to wish that the world around him was different.

He was called to bring a word of judgment against the people of Judah for their idolatry. They had broken their covenant with God and as a result would face the consequences of their actions.

Jeremiah was called to proclaim a time of famine, defeat, and captivity.

During his prophetic ministry, he witnessed the exile of the Judean leaders, the fall of Jerusalem, and the destruction of Solomon’s Temple.

Trust me… if Jeremiah could have cried out “Tut-tut… looks like rain!” he might have gotten out of there.

But somehow in the midst of that, he didn’t abandon his job and he held on to hope.

He trusted in God’s faithfulness in spite of Judah’s sin and rebellion.

He continued to pay attention to the word of the Lord being spoken in his midst and it allowed him to trust that this place that was an absolute mess could be transformed into home once again.

A home where God’s will would reign.

A home where what is right and just would be done.

In fact, in the chapter before this, the Babylonians are at the gate of the city, attacking it, and yet Jeremiah buys a field as a sign of his hope in what God could do.

Because as God speaks through him, “the days are coming when I will fulfill my promises and a righteous Branch will sprout from David’s line.” (33:14-15 paraphrase).

Jeremiah trusts and believes that God will make a home among them yet.

Both of these passages come to us on this first Sunday of Advent.

And as people of faith, who are trying to walk in the light of Jesus, the world we experience around us surely is not what it should be.

I think about the gun violence here in Des Moines that has tragically taken the life of so many young ones this year.

In the last month, a two-year old child was struck by a stray bullet on the same night a young man named Dean Deng was shot and killed. Deng was part of the Mabaan South Sudanese United Methodist Church here in Des Moines. The week before the death of a fifteen-year old in the King Irving Neighborhood.

Or I think about the increasing food scarcity in our community.

We have a number of volunteers here at Immanuel that have started checking our little food pantry on a daily basis and they stop in my office and tell me about how every day it empties out. Not only do our neighbors need food, but they need gloves and socks for warmth.

This world is not the home that God intends for us.

And we can be so focused on what is wrong…

We can dull ourselves with all of the anxieties of life…

We can be filled with fear and foreboding…

Or… we can start to pay attention for where there is hope.

We can pay attention to where new life is sprouting…

We can stand up and raise our heads and look for where God is inviting us to invest in the kin-dom… our true home.

I am reminded of the importance of our partnership with local schools and organizations like CFUM and all of the ways we help show young people that they are loved and valued and help put them on a different kind of track – one that doesn’t involve guns and violence.

And I think of how we can do our part to fight hunger, but also how we can join with larger efforts like the work of DMARC. DMARC has seen the need grow so much in these last few years that they are moving to larger facilities to care for the needs of our community. This network is such a vital part of how we partner with our larger community in making sure that all who hunger are fed. Because of this, our Christmas Eve offering this year will go towards helping DMARC move into their new home.

Hope, you see, is not passive.

When everything feels like it is falling apart and we get homesick for a better world, that is when God is inviting us to get up and get busy for the kin-dom.

If we want a just world, then we need to admit our part in injustices, repent, and seek another way.

If we want a world where all are healed, then we can do our part in caring for the sick, creating the conditions for health, and preventing disease.

If we want a world where creeks run clean, then we can recycle and advocate for public policies.

If we want a world where all who hunger are fed, then maybe we should start setting the table and inviting others to join us.

There are signs all around us that things are not as they should be.

But rather than signs of doom, they are simply reminders of where God is tugging at your heart and calling you to be the hands and feet of Christ.

Instead of wallowing in our homesickness, we are called to use that hurt deep within as fuel for a better world.

Friends, if you think that this party is a bust and it’s time to go home… then you are right.

Tut-tut. It is time to go.

It is time to go and get to work for the kingdom of God.

Again & Again, We Are Called to Listen

Posted on February 28, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Mark 8:31-9:8

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I have been thinking this week about my grandfather.

A little less than a year ago he died and in the weeks to follow, my little brother discovered online a memoir my Grandpa Earl had written for a booklet called “Facing Bereavement” from Alpha Ministries.

He tells of how he and my Grandma Doni were faithful churchgoers for years… until the spring of 1987.

My aunt, Candy, died at the age of 32 from an incurable brain tumor and they stopped going to church. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision, but my grandpa was angry. He found ways to just not be available.

Jennifer Stern writes that “grief, like drowning, an be deceptively quiet… those who live with grief often appear “okay”… they look like they are floating (if not swimming) yet on the inside they feel they are drowning…. It takes herculean effort to stay afloat during the rough waters of grief.” [1]

Grandpa Earl tried to stay afloat and numb his pain by traveling extensively for work and numbing it through heavy drinking. My grandma kept asking him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen. He writes, “Throughout this time, I was drinking Scotch every night and I didn’t think I could stop – I didn’t really want to. I didn’t have the willpower. I was still mad.”

My grandma didn’t drink, but one day she had enough of my grandpa’s behavior. She got drunk, floated out into the lake and might have drowned had my grandpa not found her. He thought she was trying to commit suicide, but after she yelled at him for hours, he came to understand just how unhappy she had been. A truth he hadn’t been able to hear until he dove into the water to drag her back to the dock.

My grandpa had been so caught up in his own pain, he couldn’t see or hear hers. He made a home in his anger and drinking and distance. He couldn’t see how his actions were causing further harm because he lived in a different reality. A false reality.

Until my grandmother was finally able to get through to him with a hard truth.

The next day, he made a commitment to never drink again.

And he kept that promise.

Together, they found ways to confront the reality of their loss. Together, they found ways to heal. Together, they found faith again.

The truth is, we all get stuck in our own pain.

We all get caught up false realities we think are good for us, whether they are narratives of success, or the rose-colored glasses of our privilege, or illusions that everything is okay when it is not.

Again and again, we mess up and refuse to see hard truths.

Rev. T. Denise Anderson rightly notes that “we don’t exactly incentivize the telling of hard truths.” After all, “hard truths trouble the waters of our understanding and challenge notions of what is real.”

Patterns of “shame, guilt, ignorance, or inaction” can trap us in situations that feel familiar and comfortable, when reality is far more difficult to accept.

We drive past the person looking for a handout on the street corner and ignore the problems of homelessness in our city.

We rush to make a neighbor feel better rather than actually listening to their story.

We lift up our few relationships with people of color instead of confessing the systemic racial injustices that plague our church and nation.

We drown our sorrows rather than holding them in the light and seeking healing.

In our scripture for today, Peter, likewise, found himself confronted with some hard truths.

Truths that shook the core of his being.

He seems like he has it all together, just like my grandpa did.

After all, Peter has been walking in the footsteps of Jesus for months.

He had a front-row seat to the inbreaking Kingdom of God!

And so when Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter knew the answer.

“You are the Messiah.”

It sounds like the right answer, but… perhaps Peter wasn’t actually pay attention.

In this time, the Messiah, the Christ, “the anointed one,” came with numerous interpretations.

Some talked of a king who would rule with divine authority.

Others believed the Messiah would return at the end of days to bring judgment.

Still others hoped for a spiritual leader who would reform the people.

When Jesus starts to say things HIS messiah would never say: words like suffering, rejection, and death, the text says Peter takes hold of Jesus and rebukes him.

“No, no, no, Jesus… you have it all wrong…”

Like Peter, we want it to be easy.

We want to pretend that everything will magically be better.

We’d like to think that we can show up for church once and a while and nothing more will be expected of us until we arrive at the pearly gates.

We have had enough death and suffering… especially in Covid times.

We’re tired of living in Lent.

We’d rather plead ignorance, or avert our eyes, or numb reality away with our favorite vice.

“No, no, no, Jesus… you have it all wrong…”

But Jesus challenges those false narratives with a dose of hard truth.

As Debie Thomas reminds us, we cannot replace the cross with a shortcut. [2]

If we want to be a disciple, we must take up the cross.

If we want to save our lives, we must let them go.

And truth be told… a lot of us really are not ready to embrace that reality.

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A few days later, Peter and some other disciples find themselves on a mountain top where Jesus is transfigured before their very eyes.

God’s power and presence is revealed in their midst.

The sight of Moses and Elijah confirms the role of Jesus in the world.

Surely, Peter gets it now… right?

Only, again.. and again… he wants it to be easy.

Or rather, the possibility of having to actually accept this reality is terrifying.

He thinks maybe there is an “out” from all this talk about crosses and suffering and death:

“It’s good to be here… let’s build a shelter. Let’s start a church. Let’s stay right here in this place and not leave.”

But the clouds roll in and a voice rumbles from the heavens… “This is my Son! Listen to him!”

Rev. T. Denise Anderson asks: Are we willing to listen to hard truths?

“Or are we committed to the status quo because, though it may be imperfect, it’s at least familiar?”

We tend to protect ourselves with numbness or apathy, or by plowing ahead focusing only on our own needs and desires without concern for anyone else.

Maybe this call to listen, to pay attention, to be aware, is actually what allows us to take up our cross.

Maybe it is what finally allows us to step outside of what Debie Thomas names as those vicious cycles we embrace again and again… cycles of denial and acquisition, success and violence, false realities that try to “cheat death, but in fact rob us of… abundant life.”

What if taking up our cross is not about denying the world, but opening ourselves to the suffering of the world?

We “experience the abundant life Jesus offers,” Thomas writes, “by accepting – against all the lies of my culture – that I will die, and trusting in Jesus’s assurance that I will rise again.”

And once we truly listen and understand that reality, we cannot help but work to make it a reality for others as well.

For a long time, Peter watched as the Kingdom of God was breaking forth.

The hungry were fed.

Demons were cast out.

His own mother-in-law was healed.

“This guy is making everything better!” He must have thought.

But what Jesus offers is not an invitation to sit back and watch…

Jesus doesn’t say that once we get ours the work is done…

Jesus calls us to listen, to notice, to roll up our sleeves, to take up our cross, to labor for the Kingdom.

To stand in the midst of the world’s pain and see the hungry…

notice the demons and powers that would destroy….

Weep with the broken and grieving…

and then do something about it.

We experience God’s abundant life when we enter into the reality of the suffering of this world and give everything we can to bring about God’s reality.

That was the kind of legacy that my grandfather left.

When he lost my aunt, Candy, he tried to hide from the reality of that loss. He numbed away the pain and closed himself off from others.

When my grandmother died from the same kind of tumor in 2001, he embraced the cross of Jesus Christ.

He learned to listen not only to God, but to his own pain and to the pain of the world.

He decided to let go of trying to do it all his own way and decided to allow others to help. To allow God to help.

My grandpa wrote: “I know that until he calls me home I have a mission of reaching out, touching people, helping carry his word in any way that’s his will.”

Grandpa Earl got involved in the church’s after school program and hung out with the kiddos every afternoon… building with blocks, reading stories, singing songs.

He started visiting people who were in trouble and needed someone to talk to, whether they were home or in the hospital.

He became involved in recovery ministry and A/A and made his famous five-pound-fudge to take to meetings.

When he listened to his own pain, and saw how God was moving through it, he was able to listen to the pain of others, and help them find a way through as well.

As Anderson reminds us, “Again and again, we are implored to listen, especially when what we hear is unsettling.” Again and again, God shows us a path through the difficulties of this world… through even death itself… to abundant life.

May we hear… and may we act.

[1] https://transformativegrief.com/2018/04/30/drowning-doesnt-always-look-like-drowning-neither-does-grief/

[2] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2930-gains-and-losses

Who Is At the Table

Posted on October 4, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Philemon 1:1-17

On Monday night, our Administrative Council gathered to talk about how we are doing as a church and what we wanted to focus on next year.
One of the questions before us was: How has Covid-19 impacted your ministry?
Of course there were the obvious things… we’re worshipping online, we’ve adapted to challenges, we’ve built new caring connections lists to reach out in love.
But one of the things echoed something I’ve heard a lot about our church.
“Immanuel is like a family – and we miss getting together with our family.”

Our church is like a family.
And maybe not “like family” … we ARE a family.
Not only have we adopted one another as surrogate parents and grandchildren and the like… but we are all children of God.
We join together with Jesus and pray to “Our Father…”
We are brothers and sisters, siblings in Christ.
We are equal and beloved and valued within this family.
Doesn’t that language feel so natural to us today?

However, Carol Ferguson reminds us it was not always so.
Biological family was everything in the ancient world—Jewish and Roman alike. Wealth, occupation, legal status, citizenship—all these flowed directly along family lines. In our Hebrew scriptures, family language is almost always used in technical terms—a biological brother, an ancestral father.

What does this mean for our house/churches?
Well, a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that typically an entire household would convert and become Christian together.
In this time in Roman culture, the family, or familia included everyone in the household.
But not everyone in the family was related by blood.
Some were servants or clients.
Some were slaves.
In the household, the familia, not everyone was equal or beloved or valued.

We get a glimpse of what that meant in the letter from Paul to Philemon.
Philemon and Apphia and Archippus hosted a house/church in their community.
Paul pours upon them lavish praise for their love and faithfulness and partnership in the faith.
Like other households of the time, everyone under their roof would likely have converted as they came to the faith.
Including their slave, Onesimus.

Somehow, although it is not explained, Onesimus came to be with Paul.
Maybe Philemon sent him along, handing him off and discarding him like he might a workhorse.
Maybe Onesimus ran away.
Maybe Paul requested his services.
Whatever might have happened, Paul believes it is time for Onesimus to return to the household of Philemon.

The question is… what will his status be in the household, the family, when he arrives?
Will it be as a slave?
Or will it be as a brother?

You see, there is an important shift that happens in the language of Paul that gets embedded in who we have become as the church.
He starts talking about people of faith with biological family terms.
We heard it last week at the end of Romans – three people are referred to as kin: Junia, Andronicus, and Herodion.
And then you have the mother of Rufus… who is like a mother to Paul.

In this letter, he calls Timothy his brother.
Philemon is his dearly beloved.
He refers to Apphia as his sister.
And then he calls Onesimus his child.

As Carol Fergeson writes:
… when the apostle Paul began to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, he throws around family terms like its going out of style—everyone is his brother and sister, his mother, his children, he is like a father, we are all family in Christ. Across bloodlines, across geographies, across status, across faiths, across conflicts, Paul fashions all who believe in Jesus as the new chosen family of Christ…
None of these people share a bloodline. They do, however, share a Savior.

I’m reminded of those powerful words that Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians:
You are all God’s children through faith in Christ Jesus… There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free; nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:26, 28)
In Christ, we are all heirs of the promise.
Children of God.
Brothers and Sisters and Siblings one and all.

Today is World Communion Sunday, a day in which we open our hearts and minds and attention beyond just this local church and pay attention to the entire family of Christ.
A family extends beyond political divides…
beyond borders…
beyond economic status…
beyond race…
All are welcome at the table.

I hear a lot of you today asking why can’t we all just be children in Christ?
Why can’t we erase the labels?
Why can’t we gather around the table without these defining characteristics?

I think Paul named them, because the distinctions matter.
Onesimus was a slave. Philemon was a free citizen.
Their lives were different.

These distinctions of our gender identity, our race, our ethnic background, our socio-economic status…
They inform our experiences.
They tell the story of where we have been and what we value.
They paint the beautiful, diverse tapestry of the great multitude from every tribe and language that will stand before the throne of God in Revelation.

The distinctions don’t keep us from that presence of God.
But Paul specifically names them, because they call to mind disparities that exist in the world, and in the body of Christ itself.
As my classmate and pastor Mika Edmondson writes, “…the problem is not our distinctions; it’s our use of those distinctions to establish sinful disparities.” (https://corechristianity.com/resource-library/articles/why-the-bible-doesnt-teach-us-to-be-colorblind/)

Imagine with me, if you will, what it might have meant to be a part of a house/church, a household, that centered their lives on Christ.
Imagine that you were a slave in this context.
Imagine that you didn’t have a choice about converting.
Imagine that you prayed with this community to a crucified Savior while you yourself had the scars of the whip on your back.
Imagine you were forced to dry the floors after the community had poured the grace-filled waters of baptism upon one another.
Imagine that you stood in the distance and served others, while people read Jesus’ words to the poor and the hungry.

Paul sends Onesimus back to his master’s household.
Under one roof, in Christ, the slave and the free would live once again.
And while I wish Paul had commanded Philemon to release the man from slavery, he doesn’t.
I have to be honest, freeing Onesimus would not have changed his status within the culture at large.
He could never be a citizen… he could only ever be a freed slave.
Slavery would always be attached to his identity.
His social and economic status would not change.
But Paul begs Philemon to welcome Onesimus as more than a slave… as a brother.
To accept him into his home as he might accept Paul himself… as a cherished guest and partner in ministry.

What Paul is telling us in both of these places is that while the distinctions may continue to exist, the sinful disparities within the body of Christ, the family of God, are no longer acceptable.
Paul asks Philemon to accept Onesimus as a brother.
He begs him to consider him as a precious family member, a fellow human being.
As equal, and valued, and beloved.
To consider him as someone who truly matters.

We talk a good talk when it comes to World Communion Sunday.
It feels good to lift up and think about how we are all connected and part of the body of Christ.
But like Philemon and Apphia, the challenge before us is to actually live it out.
You see, there are great disparities that exist in this family.
Not everyone is equal or beloved or valued.
Not every life matters.

This week, I learned that our African-American neighbors are twice as likely to die of the coronavirus that our white neighbors.
When you examine the deaths of children from this virus, 78% of the children who have died are children of color.
78%!
And what you see behind those disparities are a whole host other disparities: unequal access to education and medical care, red-lining in housing, lack of generational wealth and representation in decision making.

And I haven’t even covered global disparities related to access to education and health and the climate crisis and economic opportunity.

It is easy to ignore these disparities when they don’t impact us.
But if this was the reality facing your brother…
If this was the disparity that existed for your mother or your child…
What would you do?

I think about the death of George Floyd and how he cried out to his momma… Paul would remind us… we are all his momma.
I think about the children in ICE detention, seeking a better life… Paul would claim them as his children… our children in Christ.
I think about the men who have been put to death this year by our federal government… five executions in two months after a seventeen year moratorium… Paul would beg us to think of these men as more than criminals, but as our brothers.

You know there is this incredible line in Paul’s letter to Philemon.
Paul writes that if Onesimus harmed you in any way or owes you money, charge it to Paul.
If there were any mistakes in the past.
If there were any laws broken.
If there were any faults in their character.
If you are tempted to turn these people away because you are angry with them.
If you want to discount them because of their sin.
If you don’t think they matter because of something they did that was wrong…
Put it all on me.
They matter.
They are important.
See their humanity.
They are your family.
They are part of this body.
Fight for them.
Love them.
Love them as Christ loved them.

Friends, today as we gather to celebrate World Communion Sunday, it feels kind of like we are going through the motions.
Because we are so broken.
We are so divided.
We do not see the humanity in one another.
Republican or Democrat…
Rich or Poor…
… we throw around those labels like insults.
The labels are not the problem.
How we treat one another is.
Where is the love?
Where is the grace?
Where is the mercy?
Where are all of those things that we have learned right here at this communion table?

Today, Paul is writing to us.
In our homes.
In our relationships.
If you really consider me to be your partner in ministry…
If you really follow Christ…
If you really abide in his love…
Then look at those that you would diminish…
Those you might discount…
Those you think are stupid because of something they posted on social media…
Even those who have harmed you…
See them.
Listen to their story.
Hear what they have to offer.
Consider them to be your brother… your sister… your sibling in Christ.
Pull up a chair at your table and let them know that they matter.
That they matter to you.

A Resilient Foundation

Posted on June 21, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Matthew 7:24-25; Ephesians 3:14-19

Who holds you up?
What keeps you from toppling?
In the midst of storms and fire and viruses and racism and accusation and conflict, how do you not fall apart?
When you are juggling kids and work and zoom meetings and the dog and the lawn needs mowed what are you supposed to do?

Consider the lilies, Jesus says just a handful of verses before our scripture from Matthew today… or maybe in our case, consider the trees.
How does a giant sequoia remain standing for not years, not centuries, but for thousands of years?

General Sherman is the world’s largest known tree and can be found in the midst of Sequoia National Park. As Lyons and Barkhauer remind us, it is:
“…not the tallest, nor the widest, nor the oldest, but don’t let the lack of superlatives lower your expectations. General Sherman is the largest by volume and by weight. A sign at the tree’s base states it could hold enough water to fill almost ten thousand bathtubs, and that it weighs about 1,385 tons. Estimated at 2,200 years old [my note – that’s older than Jesus!] – the tree is more than 36 feet across at the base and towers 274 feet above you.” (America’s Holy Ground, p. 201-202)

Think about what that single tree has withstood…
Earthquakes.
Wildfires.
Drought.
High Winds.
Humans.
And still it remains standing.

What can we learn from trees like this?
What lessons do they have to teach us?

I think the first lesson is that you have to have strong roots and a firm foundation upon which to stand.
Imagine the depth and the breadth of the structure that is required to support such an immense tree.
For millennia those roots have sunk deep into the rocky soil, pushing water and nutrients up the trunk to provide growth.
Without a strong foundation, it would topple over and collapse.

And we are the same way.
Without the foundations in our lives that give us support and structure, we, too, would collapse.
These verses from the gospel of Matthew come at the end of three chapters filled with instruction and encouragement about how we should live in the world.
The “Sermon on the Mount” teaches us what it means to be truly blessed…
That the Kingdom belongs to the hungry, the hopeless, and the grieving…
the humble, the harassed, and the peacemakers
Jesus tells us how to share God’s love with others…
And he stretches our understanding of the law so that it is fulfilled not by adhering to the letter, but the spirit…
He reminds us that it is not enough not to kill, we should not even be angry at one another…
That we should not simply refrain from adultery, we should not objectify others…
Turn the other cheek…
Love your enemies…
Stop showing off your faith for others and actually turn to God…
Don’t worry about yourself, but seek God’s kingdom…
Don’t judge others, but pay attention to the fruit you are producing in the world…

And then Jesus concludes this amazing teaching by saying:
“These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life… improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on.” (7:24 MSG).
These are not adornments or afterthoughts.
These are the roots.
This is the foundation.
This is the solid rock upon which everything else rests.
If these principles have not already formed the basis for our faith, for our lives, for our souls… then when the winds and rain and conflict and turmoil come our way… of course it will all fall apart.
Without a deep commitment towards others, a deep well of mercy and forgiveness, a deep sense that God is with us in the midst of anything we face, we will “become disoriented, unsteady, and unsure.” (p.203)
We will become angry and reactive and defensive when the winds of change or turmoil or conflict begin to blow.

And if that is how you are feeling in your own life… then we can start by shoring up those foundations.

We have to care for our own bodies and minds.
Just recently, we sent home to our families a “Guide to Self-Care” in the midst of this pandemic.
It contains very simple reminders of things we can do like get enough sleep, take time for friends, leave room for our feelings, and breathing.
There can be so much pressure and stress blowing in our lives right now and these simple things ground us in the moment.

We also can turn to and remember our own history and the people who have come before us.
Today, on Father’s Day, we are invited to remember the wisdom of our fathers and grandfathers and generations past who have taught us how to get through difficult moments.
From simple things like how they helped us to get back on the bike when we fell off…
To their own experiences with the civil rights movement, or how they responded to the polio epidemic, or how they kept going in the midst of a loss in their life…

Our forefathers, our ancestors, those roots of our family tree… they are a source of love and hope and strength during these tough times.

And then, we need to strength our faith foundations.
Turn to scripture.
Spend time in prayer.
Join a small group to re-center your faith.
Nurture the roots, the foundation, the ground in which you live and move and have your being.
That was Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus.
He was seeking to strengthen their faith and help them withstand whatever controversies or oppression they might face and so he prayed that God might give them strong roots in love.
He prayed that they would open their hearts and allow Christ to make a home there.
He believed that this would create a firm foundation of rooted and grounded faith. That it would build deep sustained roots would allow them to be able to grasp the width and length and height and dept of God’s love.
And he believed with these strong foundations, these amazing roots, that God could do amazing, miraculous, holy and wonderful things through the church.
That is my prayer for you, too.
That our own foundation and roots might be strengthen by one another and by God so that no matter what comes our way, our faith and our community will not topple.

But the other lesson that I think we have to learn from these trees is that what can appear to adversity can actually be the source of new life. We are learning that strong roots and solid foundations provide resiliency in the midst of storms that creates new opportunities.

I learned this week that giant sequoias need wildfires in order to continue as a species.
They are remarkably fire-resistant… some with bark up to thirty inches thick.
But more than that – without the intense heat of the fire, the sequoia cones cannot open to release their seeds.
Fire also clears away any of the clutter and overgrowth on the forest floor, creating space for seedlings to germinate and survive.

I think some of what we are seeing in our world today feels like that dangerous wildfire coming at us faster than we can run.
There is a lot of anger and frustration spilling out and we don’t know how to put it out or stop it or what to do with it.
But maybe it is a question of reframing.

First – where have I become afraid or anxious or reactive when I am actually more protected and safer than I thought?
Adam Hamilton reminds us in his book, “Afraid” that facts are more important than fear.
Taking the time to get the facts, to understand another perspective, to prepare yourself and create a plan… all of these are ways we can build up that think bark of protection that allows us to stand resilient in the midst of the turmoil.

Second – What is being revealed that we couldn’t see before with all of the clutter? As we notice things related to the coronavirus, or racism, or institutional and systemic practices… sometimes we get frustrated that they were not brought up or handled before.
But some things can only be seen in moments of chaos and conflict when everything else is cleared out of the way.
This moment has helped families to find respite from their busy schedules.
It has helped us to recognize the lonely and vulnerable who are our neighbors.
It has uncovered some of the problems with how we interact with one another we were too busy or distracted to see.

Third – we are seeing the seeds of this time and changes and new life and opportunities springing up all around.
Common sense reforms that make communities and police officers safer.
Real conversations about our history of racism.
We are building new ways of reaching out to one another like our caring connections groups.
Even online worship opportunities are impacting more people than we ever would have done had we remained within our walls.

God does not promise that wind and fire and turmoil and conflict will not come our way.
They most certainly will.
But God has invited us to claim a faith, to be grounded in love, to build our lives upon a firm foundation that can weather the woes of the world.
And with God’s help… with Christ living in our heart… with the Spirit providing strength… we lives we have built will not fall apart.
As Paul writes:
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Forever and always.
Amen.

What are you even doing here?

Posted on January 27, 2020Leave a comment

I am exactly nine days into my renewal leave and I had a dream last night about an Administrative Council meeting.

I was back at church with all of those familiar faces, reconnecting and catching up and it was wonderful… only something was terribly wrong.

I wasn’t supposed to be there.

Last night, in reality, there was an Ad Council meeting at church and I didn’t actually go. We have great capable leaders and they are awesome without me.

But in my dream… I was there.

In my dream, I had stopped by for some reason or another. And I kept talking with people. I kept answering questions. And before I knew it, I looked at the clock and it was 10:15 pm!

I remembering a feeling of intense panic. I was on renewal leave. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was supposed to be home with my spouse and I had completely blown him off. I turned to a colleague who was sitting next to me with terror all over my face. He looked at me, partly with pity and partly with frustration. “What are you even doing here?” he asked.

One of the things that I find incredibly difficult is disconnecting from work. Because I love it. Because I’m good at it. Because it feels good, even when it is stressful, to help other people and make things work the way they should.

So far, I confess, on this renewal leave I have checked my email once.

I was looking quickly for responses to a very last minute proposal I had about changing a meeting date when I returned. I wanted to see what the responses were so I could communicate the date change with my family.

But I also glanced and saw a notification from the hospital about a church member who had been admitted. The feelings of guilt started to creep in. What if they need me? What if no one shows up? What if, heaven forbid, someone dies while I’m gone? I had to pray to God for peace and talk myself down for about an hour. “This is why you left them in the absolutely capable hands of an amazing colleague… Even Jesus took breaks… You are not the be-all and end-all of the care system at that church… Even if you miss a funeral while you are away, that doesn’t mean that you can’t still provide care when you get back...”

But there was also that pesky internal critic: “See, this is why you shouldn’t check your email when you are supposed to be on break. It sets you on a tailspin of wanting to be there and respond and make it all better. And that’s not what this time is about.”

And you know what… that internal critic is right. There do need to be boundaries between my church life and my home life. I need to be able to have some dedicated space carved out for sabbath and family and renewal – not just during these four weeks, but every week. Every day, really.

For years I have had a signature line on my email that reads, “Fridays and Saturdays are my Sabbath days. I look forward to responding when I am back in the office on Monday.”

But in the past year, have I actually stopped checking my email on the weekends? Have I been holding firmly to that boundary?

The week before I left, I sent a pretty important email to my SPRC chair. Before bed, I checked my email, saw he had responded, and shot off a reply.

And immediately I got another back. He said something to the effect of: Are you on call 24/7?

It was a reminder that the expectations I have been putting on myself are not the same as what the congregation actually needs or expects.

Or maybe it should have been heard more like that colleague in my dream, with pity and frustration: “What are you even doing here?”

There have been legitimate emergencies and exceptions in the course of my ministry that have called me away from my Sabbath and home time. The panicked texting of a teenager in the middle of the night who feels unsafe. The early morning trips to the hospital before a surgery to pray. The call on a Saturday afternoon that someone has died. Two entire weeks spent out of state for General Conference.

But an email is not an emergency.

A meeting I am not responsible for is not an excuse for breaking boundaries.

A text or voicemail that can wait until the next day is not a sufficient reason to give up time with friends or family.

And maybe in those spaces and those moments when I am tempted to show up or respond or engage I need to keep that voice in the back of my mind:

“What are you even doing here?“

That voice comes along with other questions like:

Why have you given this energy when it can wait?
Why are you sacrificing this time you have set aside for family?
Is this really about them? Or is it about you and your own need to feel needed?
What are you avoiding by choosing to spend your time this way?
Who else can help/support/respond?

I woke up from that dream with my heart in my throat. I’m anxious that this time of renewal and rejuvenation will simply result in a return to old patterns and behaviors.

I mean, I’ve never been five hours late home, like I was in this dream… but I have spent an entire evening only partially present: checking emails, responding to texts, thinking and pondering something that needed to be done the next day.

And when I’m in that space, the truth is, I’m not really home. Not fully, anyways.

So if nothing else, one of the things I want to carry back into the real world with me is the avoidance of that little voice: “What are you even doing here?”

And I think that I can prevent that question from needing to be asked by utilizing some tools that have been really helpful during this time away. Things like changing my notification settings on my phone so that emails don’t show up during evening hours. Or, putting my phone with my wallet instead of carrying it around all the time. Or removing the Facebook app from my phone. Honestly, its randomly coming across a pastoral care concern or a church polity question on facebook that often prompts me reaching out with an email or a text or response when it could legitimately wait until the next day.

I think remembering that little voice will hold me accountable to my boundaries. I think it will remind me that I don’t have to be “on” 24/7. I think it help me think of those who are impacted by where I choose to spend my energy – for good or for bad. There is a whole lot of truth jam-packed in that little question: “What are you even doing here?”

Salvaging Faith in 2020

Posted on January 22, 2020Leave a comment

It’s been a while.

A long time since I just sat down to write without a deadline looming.

Without it being someone else’s project.

Without the pressure to say just the right thing for a specific audience.

It’s been a long time since I wrote just for me.

I started this blog in the summer of 2007 as a place to reflect and muse and capture all of the parts of myself, my story, my tradition that were important to keep carrying with me into the future. In many ways, the idea of salvaging all of these pieces of faith were intended to be a way of curating ideas that had value and meaning and importance in my life.

It never really mattered if anyone else read these pages, although it has been really nice to have company along the way 🙂

But somewhere in the midst of the busyness of church and other people’s projects and my marriage I just stopped writing. I stopped reflecting. I stopped looking around and processing what was happening in my life in this particular way.

But I have some time now.

Monday began a four week renewal leave from my church and one of my primary goals was to spend some of my time right here at the keyboard. Not because there is anything important I have to say, but because the very act of thinking and writing and processing itself is a spiritual practice that has been missing from my journey.

The fact that it took me a day or two to actually sit down with the laptop says a little bit of something about the hesitation that I’m feeling about doing so. I think, in part, that is because so much of my life lately has revolved around the church. I’m afraid that if I sit down to write, I’ll just get sucked back in to it all. That I’ll lose my ability to truly disconnect for a few weeks and re-center myself in who I am.

So for now, here’s a list of things I’d like to write about:

How the Rooney Rule (and its mixed results) might provide guidance for the draft Book of Doctrines and Disciplines proposed by the WCA
Does wanting to preserve the parts of our connectional nature and structure that are working make me an institutionalist? And if so, can I live with / accept that label? What does it mean to salvage the best parts of who we are and take them with us into the future, instead of starting over?
Why I think the Protocol is our best option for the mission of the church to make disciples and transform the world
What I’ve learned about what it means to equip the saints… the hard way… from failing to do so and overfunctioning in a mid-sized church.

There.

Now those things are set to the side and off my mind. I might pick them back up in the next few weeks. Or maybe not.

After all, this leave is not about the UMC or my local church or my ministry there. It is about looking out at everything else in my life. My marriage, my family, my relationship with God, the things that make me laugh and feed my soul, my friendships. It is about taking some time to dig through everything else that makes me me and working to salvage the things I might have discarded or ignored or let lie fallow for a bit.

To pick up those pieces and put them back together in a way that feels whole and good and right.

And to relearn how to preserve and protect them so that when I head back to work, they don’t take a back burner.

Renew Our Whereabouts

Posted on January 13, 2020Leave a comment

Text: Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17

This weekend, I’ve been gathered along with our confirmation students and mentors and teachers for a retreat. Our focus has been what makes us distinctly United Methodist. We’ve talked about our church structure, the way of discipleship, how we discover wo God is, and what we believe about grace.

Along the way, I keep thinking about how our time together was kind of a boot camp, a crash course in the foundations of who we are.

We’ve been talking about our shared theology as Christians and our place in the history of the church, but this was a chance to really step into a tradition.

To learn about it.
As questions.
Get ready to claim it as their own.

Earlier in the week, I read a lovely reflection by Debie Thomas. Her weekly essays at Journey with Jesus help pastors and laity alike reflect on the what the lectionary texts mean for us today.

This week, she wrote of her own experience being baptized and how it felt like such a personal commitment. She was choosing Jesus. It was all about her and her faith in that moment. As a young girl, she believed it was all about what she was doing, her obedience, her choice.

But when she thinks back on the story we just shared with you of Jesus going to the River Jordan to be baptized by John, she didn’t see it as a personal stepping out.

Instead, she saw it as stepping in.

“A stepping into a history, a lineage, a geography, an identity. In receiving baptism, Jesus doesn’t set himself apart from us; he aligns himself with us.”

For a normal person, that wouldn’t be a big deal…
To identify with others…
To join in what they were doing…

But this was Jesus!
He didn’t need us.
He didn’t need to repent and be forgiven.
He didn’t need to humble himself that way in those dirty waters of the river.

But he did.

Debie Thomas reminds us that the very first public act of Jesus was to step into our lives.
He submitted to John the Baptist… because he gives away his power.
He entered the Jordan River, that sacred place filled with so much history.

“Jesus stepped into the whole Story of God’s work on earth, and allowed that story to resonate, deepen, and find completion.”

Although it was only last week we were thinking about the babe in the manger and the wise ones who visited, this was really the first public act of Jesus.

For many at the time, this moment was the beginning of their encounter with Christ.
It was the first moment that they recognized what God was doing in their midst.
And when the Servant of God, the Beloved One, appeared before them, it wasn’t a spectacle.
It wasn’t to take over.
It wasn’t to transform everything in an moment.

It was an invitation.
An invitation for us to step in as well.
An invitation for us to surrender.
A invitation for us to enter that tradition, that history, that community of faith that has gone before us.

As Debie Thomas writes,

“To embrace Christ’s baptism story is to embrace the core truth that we are united, interdependent, connected, one. It is to sit with the staggering reality that we are deeply, deeply loved.”

I remember the day my youngest brother Darren was baptized.
He and my mom had transferred to a new church and they had missed a window for confirmation, so when it came around again, he signed up.

Unfortunately for Darren, this new church held confirmation during the seventh grade year, and he was a junior in high school.
He was about a foot and a half taller than the rest of his classmates, but Darren went through the entire class with them and was confirmed that spring.

I got to be there the day my little brother was confirmed and baptized and it was such a special moment.
All throughout the class, while he had been slightly out of place, those young kids looked up to him and they grew to be great friends.
As Darren knelt to be baptized, the pastor invited friends and family to come up and lay their hands on him.
Every single one of the kids in that confirmation class came forward and stood around us and reached out their hands to affirm and bless him.
It was quite powerful.

Darren’s baptism reminded me that whether we are young or old, whether we remember it happening to us or not, our baptisms are not private or personal events.

We are baptized in the midst of the church because those who surround us are also making commitments and vows:
the church affirms its own faith
the church pledges to act as spiritual mentors for those being baptized
the church vows their ongoing support.

In our United Methodist resources on baptism it claims that the covenant of baptism “connects God, the community of faith, and the person being baptized; all three are essential to the fulfillment of the baptismal covenant.”

Every baptism is a chance for the whole congregation to reaffirm our faith and to progress farther on the journey with Christ.

We are all stepping into live together.
“United, interdependent, connected, one.”
We are remembering that each of us, every single one, is deeply loved.

And whenever we remember our baptisms,
We have a chance to refocus on Jesus.
We have a chance to renew our whereabouts.
We have a chance to re-engage our spirits.

As we heard from the book of Isaiah this morning:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations… I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness… I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations”

And this calling, this ministry is sealed when the Spirit of the Lord descends upon him in the waters of the River Jordan.

We are remind of the spirit of God hovering over the waters in creation and God speaking, “Let there be light.”

God shows up and new life is among us.
The new creation.
New things that God declares.
A new journey for us to take.

And through our baptism, Isaiah’s servant of God… Matthew’s beloved… invites us to follow.
The light of Christ becomes part of us.
His mission becomes our own.
His journey becomes our path.

I’m reminded of a poem from Wendell Berry called the Gift of Gravity.

For those of you who don’t know Berry, he is a writer and a farmer from Kentucky who often writes about the ordinary and mundane ways that God shows up in our lives. Hear these words about the river, about the light, about the cycle of giving and taking.

All that passes descends,
and ascends again unseen
into the light: the river
coming down from sky
to hills, from hills to sea,
and carving as it moves,
to rise invisible,
gathered to light, to return
again… “The river’s injury
is its shape.” I’ve learned no more.
We are what we are given
and what is taken away;
blessed be the name
of the giver and taker.
For everything that comes
is a gift, the meaning always
carried out of sight
to renew our whereabouts,
always a starting place.
And every gift is perfect
in its beginning, for it
is “from above, and cometh down
from the Father of lights.”
Gravity is grace.

The rain and snow that falls upon us comes from God.
It washes us clean.
It surrounds us and refreshes the ground upon which we walk…
But the light comes down from God as well.
It melts the snow and ice and warms the earth and the moisture evaporates.

It is a cycle necessary for life.
“for everything that comes/ is a gift, the meaning always/ carried out of sight/ to renew our whereabouts,/ always a starting place.”

To renew our whereabouts… always a starting place.

Like rain and light, grace is poured down upon us from God.

Whether you first stepped into the faith through baptism 1 year ago or 90 years ago, grace always gives us a fresh start.

As Berry writes, it comes down upon us to renew our whereabouts… it is always a starting place.

These waters are new life for us now.
They are the chance to re-enter the journey.
To recommit to these people.
To re-energize your spirit.
To refocus on Jesus.

After all, as Debie Thomas reminds us,

“He’s the one who opens the barrier, and shows us the God we long for. He’s the one who stands in line with us at the water’s edge, willing to immerse himself in shame, scandal, repentance, and pain — all so that we might hear the only Voice that will tell us who we are and whose we are in this sacred season. Listen. We are God’s chosen. God’s children. God’s own. Even in the deepest, darkest water, we are the Beloved.”

This is the promise of God… Amen.